St. Louis

I find myself in cold, St. Louis today for the Missouri Baptist Youth Minister's meeting called Engage. Lyle Witcher along with Grant Medford, Illinois youth ministry guru, partner together to offer a retreat/conference. These two guys do a great job leading youth ministry in their states. It also gets me home to my home state, even if it is St. Louis. I still prefer the Kansas City side, but I love Missourians.

I lead a couple of breakouts here, get to encourage youth ministers and learn. I head home tomorrow night in time to leave on Sunday afternoon for FL.

Our Lady Cats play Cannon Co. at our place tonight so I miss seeing them play and am not able to announce. Bummer. I hate to miss it but am glad to be here around this group of student ministry leaders. I am pulling for our Lady Cats. We split with Cannon Co. earlier in the season. Would be great to pull off a win. Nice to play a home game in the region tournament for sure.

It has been a difficult week with some church stuff but I am thankful that our church is one that is filled with grace and truth. I am disappointed in a number of things and a number of people, but know that God is still on His throne and I am hopeful for the future. Praying for wisdom, grace and truth.

Fat Tuesday

I have always been somewhat fascinated and perplexed by the whole idea of Fat Tuesday. I know that it is followed by Ash Wednesday which marks the beginning of Lent. Lent is observed leading to Easter and is taken from the idea of Jesus in the wilderness being tempted, etc. (I am not trying to be a theolog in this post, so excuse the simpleness.) The perplexing part of this for me is the "go crazy period" followed by the "deny yourself" period. I guess I know myself well enough that if I were to choose to go crazy, I would have no desire to deny myself at all. I know that Christ issued a pretty strong call in following Him: deny self, take up your cross, and follow Me. His words, not mine in italics.

I have been reminded recently that it is only by His grace are we able to follow after Him. I am far from perfect. I am thankful that I am forgiven. I want my life to be characterized by truth and grace. I want to be a forgiver, because I have been forgiven. On my own, I am a pretty sorry rascal. In Him, He has made me whole. It is a weird thing to be fallen and whole and the same time. Hebrews 10:14 reminds me that I am perfect. Crazy. I am perfect positionally because He has made me whole.

A quick update on Morgan - she had her dual scope tests yesterday and initial reports showed no abnormalities. Her stomach continues to hurt. She has little energy. She is still pretty funny for sure, but we would appreciate your prayers for her and for all of us as we try to figure out what is going on.

I have added a new Upcoming Speaking Engagements sidebar to the blog for those of you who care where I am and for those of you who are just curious.

The DCA girls' basketball team is in the finals of the 8-AA district tournament tonight against Station Camp. They are better than we are and we are looking forward to our girls playing well tonight.

A Busy Week For Sure

It has been busy in the office and will be busier for the next few weeks. I would post my travel/speaking schedule but you would say I am crazy for doing all of this stuff and you would be right. I may try to figure out how to add my speaking engagements in a sidebar sometime in the future for those of you who would like to follow that and pray for me.

Here is a video of Morgan that is just too funny. She was playing with my webcam the other day and thought she was taking a picture, not recording a video. It is classic Morgan.

She goes for her medical tests on Monday and we are hoping things at least show us a direction to head in getting her belly fixed. All of the other tests have come back negative so we are whittling it down.

The Wildcats (guys) play tonight at 530 and the girls play on Sat. at 4p. Fun times. We will see how they do. Love basketball and sad to see it coming to an end here soon. March Madness will be awesome but with all the travel I have going on, it will be difficult to keep up with it.

Quick Update on Weds.

Too much going on for sure between upcoming travel, Morgan's basketball team in the district tournament, and her medical tests coming up on Monday. It is all good for the most part, but even too much a good thing is still too much.

Enjoying some 70 degree weather today. Only supposed to be in the 30s tomorrow. Better enjoy the warm while it is here.

Ran across this cartoon today. Thought it was funny and worthy of a blog post. Pretty funny and hope you enjoy it.

President's Day

I decided to take the day off and enjoy some time with my family. Of course, Shelbi is away at Union so that leaves Morgan and Shelbi, so really I am just spending the day with part of the family.

The weekend was good with two big wins for the DCA varsity teams. It is always good to get wins in the district and road wins are very good. We have about a week off and the district tournament begins Sat. for us. We are already assured a region game since we finished second in the district regular season and the top four from the district tournament go to region.

Morgan is feeling pretty well just not great. She rested quite a bit this weekend and has today off so rest seems to be helping. Sondra and I had a great day on Saturday together. I ran 10, she fixed us waffles at home, we ate lunch at Calypso and saw Taken. It was a pretty good movie with the body count more than the tv show 24. We enjoyed it and then just hung out at home Sat. night with Morgan. It was good fun.

Yesterday was a good day at church and nice, afternoon nap. I did manage to do some laundry and we had the Dawson's and the Fuller's over for pizza. We watched Duke lose and Carolina win. Made for a good sports night for sure.

Today has been good. Slept in, ran 5.5, hung out at Panera with Sondra and Morgan, visited the chiropractor and looking at attending the Belmont basketball game tonight. They are honoring the ladies' soccer team for making the NCAA tournament this past fall. Watching a special on the President's on The History Channel now. Fairly interesting. Not completely revisionist history which is amazing in itself.

Happy President's Day!

Another Lovely Day

I got back from Lubbock on Monday after a few flights via Dallas and KC. Enjoyed lunch with my wife and called a boy's varsity game that night.

Morgan headed to the gastro dr. on Monday and it looks like she will have a series of tests run on Feb. 23rd. They are going to check her out pretty thoroughly. She is feeling fair but not great. Thanks for praying for her.

Tuesday was in the office, a conference call with the GenWon Board of the Gideon's (which I have to say serving with this group has turned out to be one of the recent highlights of my ministry life) and then headed off to DCA for Sr. Night and many basketball games. This Sr. Night was different for us this year since we do not have a sr. in the family.

Weds and today I am in Shocco Springs, AL meeting with the student ministry leaders from across our denomination. It has been a very good meeting so far. I head home in the morning, attend a couple of ballgames and then on Saturday I have a date with my bride. Woohoo!

I sure do love the girls in the picture above and thought I would share with you our beautiful daughters.

Sunday Night Thoughts

I realized that I had not blogged since Weds. so here is a quick update. We had some really cold weather up until Thurs. and then a heat wave has hit and the weather has been in the 60s and 70s. Nice after the low teens we had. The DCA Cats played Fri. at Station Camp and lost both games. SC is pretty good but not as good as we made them look.

Yesterday I boarded a plane for Lubbock, TX and took in the Baylor/Texas Tech basketball game. I led a parents of teens ss class this am, a parenting conference this afternoon and a youth leadership class tonight. Great folks at FBC, Lubbock. A good friend, Chuck Gartmann is the youth minister here and is doing a great job. So good to be with them this weekend.

I catch an early flight home tomorrow, route through Dallas and KC and then home about noon.

Morgan has a dr. appt. w/ a gastrointerologist (spelled something like that). Hoping we get clarification on why her stomach has been hurting. She does seem to be doing a little better.

Watching the Grammy's and about ready for bed. Up early to catch the flight and hope to get a run in tomorrow after getting home.

Here is a video I have been working on today. Pretty fun and a promotion for the LifeWay National Youth Worker's Conference here in Nashville, Sept. 14-16.




Family news - Morgan seems to be holding her own but not feeling overly great. Another dr. appt. for her on Monday. Talked to Shelbi today and her first day back at Union seems to be going well. Sondra is wonderful as usual.

Pretty cold here today but hoping for warmer weather in a couple of days.

Phelps, Phootball, and Phriday

Okay, so it is Monday and I just felt like the title needed to say something other than "Monday, Monday", Big Monday, or something goofy like that so I thought I would do the ph stuff.

Michael Phelps obviously made a poor choice recently. The whole bong thing was really poor judgement on his part. I am sure he forgot that everyone in the known world has a camera either on a phone or glued to their fingernail with some James Bond sort of thingy that Q devised.

The Super Bowl was not so super for most of the game. The ads were pretty disappointing but the Dorito's Crystal Ball ad was pretty funny. I have to admit that late in the 3rd and then the 4th quarter were pretty good football except I am not sure why the officials felt compelled to throw a flag every time the Cards seemed to walk onto the field. I heard that after the game that the officials were rushed to large buckets of ice to take care of sore arms brought on by some many thrown flags. It really did get pretty ridiculous. It was somewhat obvious to a neutral fan that the Steelers got quite a few breaks. They are a good team and I like them, but I am not sure it was totally called fairly. Just my opinion. Steelers fans will disagree. Who cares? You guys are 7 time Super Bowl Champions and my opinion is just that: an opinion.

Last Friday night was great at DCA with the Make A Wish Foundation night. All totalled today, $10,336.10 or something close to that. That is enough to cover two wishes which is way to cool. Thanks to everyone involved.

Shelbi heads out tonight to spend the night with her ride to Union tomorrow. It has been great to have her home the past 6 weeks. We will miss her all over again.